


loyalty

by meng_ren



Category: Pentagon (Korean Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War II, Espionage, M/M, Multi, POV Third Person Limited, Politics, War Crimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 04:14:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8563618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meng_ren/pseuds/meng_ren
Summary: China, 1944.Yanan is a mild-mannered clerk. Yuto is a Japanese spyhunter. Changgu is a resistance fighter. Wooseok is a bodyguard. But nothing is as it seems, and nobody is who he says he is, as the four of them alternately fall in love, form alliances, and betray each other.[Lust, Caution!AU]





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this story isn't anything close to the movie or novel _Lust, Caution_ but I was inspired to write this after thinking about the movie, so that's close enough. Real-life names of historical people and places have been changed because historical accuracy would have required more research than I felt like doing.

In his own mind, Yanan had joined the resistance two years ago, on the first day that he left his hometown of Huaqing for a visit to the countryside. His parents had begged him not to go. There was a war going on, they reminded him as if he needed to be informed, and the Japanese were bombing the villages. But his friends at his high school had implored him to leave, if just for a week, to see what the country looked like outside of the small bubble of occupied Huaqing.

That trip was a nonstop blur of empty villages and scarred landscapes and corpses by the roadside.

He took that trip two years ago, and returned broken. Many years later, he would tell people that he joined the resistance in spirit if not in deed after that trip. He learned Japanese, studying diligently in the night, after working in the day helping the family business, but he did nothing further for the resistance. Until today.

He relied on a family connection. Yanan had been visiting his relatives when he overheard a conversation. His uncle, the husband of Yanan’s paternal aunt, had been conversing with an unseen woman, saying that “Old Cui” had finally returned to Huaqing to lead the underground resistance. Yanan had confronted his uncle over this issue, saying that he had been dreaming of helping the movement for two years. He was an educated student who knew Japanese, which must have given him an advantage. After weeks of imploring, his uncle had finally acquiesced and led Yanan to meet the resistance.

That brought him here, on this wintery afternoon, as he huddled under his woolen jacket in this drafty tea shop. He had entered alone, sitting in the very far back as he had been instructed. When a waitress in a clean green uniform asked for his order, he ordered as according to his instructions. “One cup of your second-best Guangdong Pu’er tea for me, and two cups of Japanese sencha for my friend.” His hands shook slightly as he handed back the menu to the young woman.

The next five minutes passed by remarkably quickly, and Yanan felt his face remain calm even as his foot tapped nervously against the floor. After the wait, two large men in Chinese tunic suits passed by his table and silently unfolded a folding screen covering his table from the view of the rest of his teahouse. A few seconds later, an older waitress wearing a grimy green uniform brought two cups of green tea and took the opposite seat.

“Go ahead, drink,” she said, as she brought her own cup to her lips.

Yanan hesitated, and did as he was told, before speaking in a quiet voice. “You’re not Old Cui, are you?”

The woman shook her head. “No. I don’t even work for Old Cui. He’s just arrived. Until he officially takes over, I still take my orders from Little Zhao.”

Yanan stared at her and realized this was the woman who had been speaking to his uncle those weeks ago.

“You’re not really a waitress, are you?” He asked, and the woman gave a slight smile.

“What made you guess?” She asked, before putting the cup down.

“Your hands look soft, and your nails are clean. Your shoes are leather, not cotton. And of course, you’re speaking to me right now.”

“You really are an educated man,” she said with a laugh. “The other members of the movement call me Sister Xue. You can call me that too, because nobody knows me by any other name.”

“You can help me help you?” Yanan asked.

“You can help me use you,” came the reply, still haughty. “Don’t think too highly of yourself. I know your uncle, and I value his help, but you’re little more than an overgrown kid. I wouldn’t be making use of you if the Japanese hadn’t just rolled up our Japanese-speaking agents.”

She drew closer to Yanan with a cold smile that sent shivers down his back. “In case you’re ever captured and tortured by the Japanese, you can tell them this. We know that they have an informant in our ranks. You can also tell them we’ve eliminated Wan Jizhong and Liu Sibai as suspects too, but I highly doubt they’ll trust you if you volunteer that information.”

Wan Jizhong was Yanan’s uncle. He had not heard of the other man though.

Yanan took a sip of tea to steady his nerves as he stared at the spy sitting before him. “I won’t do anything that will get me caught.”

Sister Xue shrugged. “Many spies don’t. I would say that for every spy who blows his cover, there are two who are betrayed. It’s hard to know who to trust.”

“I couldn’t trust you either,” said Yanan.

“No,” the woman said. “But you’ll listen to me if you want to do anything. You know of General Kokubun, right?”

Yanan nodded his head. “I’ve heard. He’s the Japanese general in charge of Huaqing.”

“You’re right. One week ago, half of General Kokubun’s men were given orders reassigning them to the interior. Henan, maybe, or Hunan. Maybe Fujian. Our agents didn’t get all of the information we wanted, but we know the General is going to suffer a serious staff shortage. You’re going to help.”

“I’m not a soldier. What would I be doing?”

“Kokubun is losing his quartermaster in the reassignment. You know how to read and write, and you can do math. You’re going to work as a clerk for the general,” said the woman. By now the tea had half run out.

“And you want me to inform any way I can. But why would he trust me?”

“Your uncle, of course. Wan Jizhong is trusted by the Japanese for his continuing work in the Huaqing Chamber of Commerce. He’ll vouch for you, and you’ll get to work. And don’t worry. If you give us critical information that we plan to use, we’ll let you know first about the danger you’re in.”

There was something about the woman’s tone of voice that told Yanan instantly that she would not let Yanan know anything that didn’t benefit her, but Yanan kept his mouth shut. This was a job that he could have expected. He had boasted to his uncle that he was educated and that he should put his education to the benefit of the nation. Now he would be given a job based solely on his past education. He took a breath.

“I can do this job,” he said, steeling himself before the woman.

The woman looked unimpressed but mildly amused. “Now here’s the plan. In two days, at noon, you will walk over to the mansion that the General has requisitioned for himself. You will hand him your papers, and a letter from your uncle. Then you do whatever they tell you to do. You will report once a week to this teahouse, on Monday at eight PM, using the same codewords as today, to me and me alone. Make sure you are not being followed. If there is anything you need to tell us on an emergency basis, you will come and say the ‘five cups’ instead of two. But do not tell anybody else anything. Speak only to me.”

Yanan nodded. “I understand. You can count me.”

“You seem confident,” Sister Xue replied. “That’s the mark of a hero or a fool."

She stood up, collecting the two cups as she left.

\---

Yuto liked this posting. There were currently two reasons. The first was location. Huaqing was a good-size city, and was vibrant even through the occupation. Some of the other soldiers who had been stationed here longer said that the war had really destroyed the city, several years earlier, but for whatever reason, the city had sprung back up. Rice prices were now reasonable, if still high enough that many still went hungry, and even a few Western-style department stores had sprung up. When he was granted leave, as he occasionally was given, he and other soldiers in the Imperial Japanese Army were permitted to walk around and tour the city. The locals only had to give him one look at his uniform, and then they were looking away. It hurt him a little bit that the locals were not more appreciative of him and his efforts to fight local warlordism and Western imperialism, but at least it prevented confrontation. Yuto liked to sit in the back of bars and dance halls, and his favorite place was the Hibiscus Moon, the only place he found which played American jazz vinyls on a modern phonograph.

The other reason had been the General. His full name and title was Major General Kokubun Tomokazu of the Imperial Japanese Army, but Yuto called him the general. The general was of middling height, and his bald head and clean shaven face made him look like a monk. Also like an ideal monk, the general possessed a surprising compassion towards all living things. That lead to the reason why Yuto liked the general: less beatings.

As an enlisted man only eighteen years of age, Yuto was almost at the bottom of the hierarchy. His six months of training had been a constant blur of hazing and punishment. That meant beatings ordered by officers, by enlisted men, and by trainees. It meant being slapped across the face for failing to salute, punched and kicked to the ground for being tardy to a meal, and beaten with sticks for looking sullen when given a command.

Here in Huaqing, however, General Kokubun hewed strictly to all Army regulations regarding the exercise of corporal punishment. It didn’t mean an end to beatings at all, as Yuto would soon learn, but it meant a semblance of order and uniformity in his punishment.

The general worked with a skeleton crew. The general had little need of translators, because he could read and write in Chinese and spoke conversational Chinese in a northern Mandarin dialect. He divided his work amongst his subordinates, who were somewhat capable, and spent much of his time working with local Chinese allies. In order to build trust with the locals, the general had taken the magnanimous step of hiring a local Chinese man to manage supplies. The man wouldn’t be allowed any authority that might allow him to steal, but he was given authority to work as an intermediary overseeing aid distributed to fellow Chinese.

Yuto was smitten as soon as he saw him.

His last name was Yan and his first name was An, but Yuto only called him Yanan. The man had pale, soft, and clear skin that set him apart from the darker Japanese and Chinese clerks who worked at the general’s office, and he was even taller than Yuto. Yanan was almost as tall as Wooseok, General Kokubun’s Korean bodyguard. Yanan even spoke Japanese!

This man, Yuto decided, would be reason number three.

It was true that he wanted to talk to Yanan. But he didn’t succeed for the first few days. He was sure that he was disturbing to the other man already, with his constant staring at the man from the other side of the office. He had this routine where he would look down at the intelligence reports he was supposed to review, then surreptitiously take a look at Yanan. Sometimes the man was looking up with a rather blank look on his face, but most of the time Yanan was looking down at his inventory forms or other documents. So then Yuto took the opportunity to stare at Yanan for a little while, as long as he could, before averting his eyes as soon as Yanan made any motion. It was a rather embarrassing way to introduce himself to the Chinese man. It wasn’t until a full week after Yanan had arrived that Yuto finally summoned the courage to walk over to where Yanan was sitting and introduce himself.

“You’re Yanan, right?” He started by saying, and then winced at how quickly the words came out.

“Yes, and you are?”

“Private. Adachi. Yuto.” He made sure to speak every word clearly and with authority.

Yanan gave a thoughtful look, and Yuto appreciated it. It meant that the Chinese man probably didn’t consider him some creep for staring at him this entire past week.

“What are you responsible for doing?” Yanan asked.

Yuto explained well. “I’m the newest member of General Kokubun’s intelligence staff. But I’m not much of a spy. My job is to read reports sent by our Chinese partners, read reports by our intelligence agents, and then tell Captain Hiraide if there’s anything worth looking at. I cross-reference names, mostly. It’s boring work but if I do it well, I might be allowed to do intelligence work, in another department.”

Yanan nodded, seeming somewhat interested. “It sounds really secretive. Are you sure you should be telling me?”

“Can’t tell you anything too secret,” he replied, putting his index finger to his lips. “There are spies everywhere.”

“Anything?” Yanan said, now stretching back in his seat and all-but-batting his eyelashes. Yuto could have sworn his heart skipped a beat, and he knew he was whipped. He sighed.

“I can’t tell you anything from my job, but I can tell you some rumors that I heard from the intelligence agents I replaced. They were here working for two years, and they were really frustrated. So frustrated, in fact, that they took up deployment to the South Pacific to fight the Americans rather than continue with their quest.”

Yanan looked enraptured by the tale, and Yuto knew he needed to continue.

“They were looking for a man named ‘the Badger’ because he was always underground. The Badger ran a network of assassins. They reportedly killed Chen Shizhong at the Hotel Batavia, and they nearly killed Mayor Liao Guangyuan in the reception held at the Italian Consulate. Captain Hiraide’s predecessor tracked down the Badger and reportedly killed him in a shootout with Chinese bandits, but the assassinations kept going,” Yuto explained, with Yanan hanging on the man’s every word. Yuto did have a flair for telling stories, he had to admit. “At least, that’s some of the gossip that I heard from the other soldiers who have been here longer than I have.”

Yuto gave a shrug, which he knew pierced the authoritative voice he just had in speaking the story, but he didn’t want the Chinese man to think he was leaking any secrets. He had seen General Kokubun hire this man right here in this office, but war was a treacherous business. Nobody had ever seen the Badger’s face. Could it have been this man right here? At least Yuto was only sharing second-hand gossip.

Yanan turned away. “I should get back to this inventory. I need to do some calculations to figure out exactly how much rice that the general and the officers need to consume each day for our current supplies to last. When’s the next time you have leave? We can visit a tea shop together.”

“Today!” Yuto said, and he winced at himself again for being too loud and enthusiastic. The statement was true, however, and the opportunity was too good to pass up. He had permission to leave the barracks tonight, and he was just getting to know Yanan. He was not going to let this opportunity slip past him.

Yanan gave a nod and pointed at his papers. “Let’s meet in the main hall of building and then decide where we’re going.”

Yuto nodded enthusiastically and then slipped back to his desk. He was finished with his reports soon afterwards, so he left the office and headed upstairs. The second floor of the building, formerly belonging to a bank aligned with the Chinese bandits, held a common room where members of the Japanese army could relax while on leave or taking a break. Many of Yuto’s fellow soldiers found Huaqing to be boring: too foreign, with people who rarely knew Japanese, and locals who constantly regarded them with fear or hostility. These men preferred to sit in their barracks and play cards rather than venture into Huaqing. In the middle of the room, seated around a mahjong table, were a few of the General’s bodyguards. The tallest of them stood up from his seat when he saw Yuto enter.

“Private Yuto,” said the man, greeting with a Yuto with a back-crushing hug. Yuto reciprocated by lightly patting him on the shoulder.

“Private Wooseok,” Yuto said back, before escaping from the hug. “What’s this for?”

“The look on your face,” said the taller man. “You actually look way too happy for a normal day.” He turned to make a gesture at the other soldiers playing mahjong to let them know they could continue without them.

Wooseok and Yuto began walking off to one of the smaller rooms, and Yuto explained that he had a new date with the cute Chinese clerk in an hour. He spoke quietly: same-sex relationships were socially disfavored if not prohibited in either the army or society at large. Wooseok fortunately was a keen listener. The two of them had bonded a few months ago when they were both being beaten by non-commissioned officers for some minor disciplinary infraction. Wooseok was a Korean private: he was at the absolute bottom of the hierarchy.

“Where are you going to go then?” Wooseok asked, voice hushed and knowing how to keep a secret.

Yuto scratched at the back of his head. “Maybe a theater? Or a tea shop? I think asking him to join me in a dance hall is premature.”

Wooseok nodded his head. “Don’t try the theater yet. You don’t know what he likes.”

Yuto nodded. “Wish me luck.”

Wooseok gave a smile that, like him, was too large by half. “Tell me how it goes.”

Yanan was standing in the lobby, leaning against a row of counters from when the building housed a bank, when Yuto returned. Yuto had a location in mind, so he waved a rickshaw for the two of them and began to make conversation as the two of them rode through the city.

“So Yanan,” Yuto said to begin the conversation, while peering around to take in the sights and sounds around him. “Are you from Huaqing?”

“I was born here,” Yanan explained, “but my ancestral hometown is in Anhui. My grandparents moved here when they were younger. Where are you from in Japan?”

“Tokyo,” said Yuto. “My family must have lived there for hundreds of years. My ancestors used to be samurai.”

“Which city is better?” Yanan’s voice was curious, and the confidence in his voice bordered on being smug.

“Of course Tokyo. Huaqing is nice but I’d like to get back to Tokyo sooner rather than later,” said Yuto, speaking over the din of the city around him. Remarkably few eyes were on the two of them, even though they were visible in the rickshaw. The man pedalling their rickshaw likewise seemed unsurprised.

Yanan gave a smirk, instead of agreeing or disagreeing, Yuto noticed. He changed the topic of the conversation to a few more mundane topics, like the weather, before they arrived at the tea shop. A brief look of surprise flickered across Yanan’s face as the two of them arrived. The tea shop was drably colored on the outside and could have been a little cleaner on the inside, but it was modern. Even better, it served good tea. While Yanan went in, Yuto paid the the rickshaw driver using the Japanese military yen issued to soldiers as currency. He tried to make the calculation in his head of how much the yen converted to the local currency. He paid the man with a few bills. Under the fair-market rate he knew he was short-changing the man, but he paid according to the official exchange rate and left it at that. Surprisingly enough, the rickshaw driver spoke Japanese and even attempted to argue with him about the fare. Yuto shoved the bills in his hand and walked away instead of replying.

Yuto took a seat by the window across from Yanan, and Yanan took the initiative by ordering tea from the middle-aged waitress in the green uniform. Yanan ordered two cups of longjing tea for the two of them, and a newspaper for himself.

“The Cheng Bao? That propaganda rag?” Yuto wrinkled his nose as he saw what Yanan was reading. He knew little Chinese outside of the shared vocabulary between Chinese and Japanese, but that was enough for him to know what Yanan was reading.

“I like it,” said Yanan with a small frown that did not evince serious disagreement. “It’s fair.”

“It’s Anglo-American swill,” said Yuto, now getting a bit more agitated. Yanan may have been cute, but he hopefully wasn’t dumb. “Its editor is an American, Wald, and its owner is that famous British businessman, Sir Morris-Crashaw. The generals would have shut it down if it wasn’t for respect to what’s left of the Western concessions.”

Yanan folded the newspaper and put it on his lap, before gently handling his cup of tea. “This is good,” he said, changing the subject. “You know your tea shops well.”

“I’ve been here, many times,” said Yuto. “I’ve been to many in Huaqing. I also know my theaters well. Do you like to watch movies?”

“Not really,” said Yanan. “I never had the chance. Life was always about school for me, and then work.”

Yuto looked crestfallen momentarily. “Do you like to dance?”

Yanan gave a nod. “I’d like to give it a try.”

“And earlier said you went to school? That must have been where you learned to read and write,” said Yuto. “That’s one thing strange about here. In Japan, almost everybody goes through school. Here, the General needs to work hard to find capable and literate staff.”

Yanan nodded again. “My family has produced many scholars who passed the imperial examinations. We had to move here because we were displaced by some war or another decades ago, not because we’re poor.”

“Your family,” said Yuto, letting his voice trail off. “Say, Yanan, is your family rich? Is there anything else you’re not telling me?” He laughed, to ease the edge off the statement. Yanan took no offense.

“Actually, my uncle is on the city’s Chamber of Commerce,” he said. It was Yuto’s turn to look surprised.

“Your family must be rich!” Yuto said, and Yanan put a finger to his lips in a sly gesture to get Yuto to stop talking.

“Stop it,” he said with a soft hiss. “Don’t think of me like that.”

“Say, Yanan, now that I know this, you should be the one paying, not me!”

“Oh, really? As I recall, this was your idea,” Yanan said this with a laugh that was music to Yuto’s ears.

“Alright, then I pay today and you pay for the next time,” Yuto responded, and Yanan laughed again.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

“Really?” Yuto leaned forward. “Next time, we should try to get an actual meal.”

“I like that idea,” said Yanan as he finished his tea.

Their conversation continued after that for sometime, but Yuto would not remember the details. As far as he knew, his date had accomplished all that he had desired.

\---

All Changgu wanted was a little bit of respect. He would not been unhappy with being greatly respected, but almost anything would have been better than his current job.

On second thought, all he wanted was respect, money, and food. And maybe some attention from women. Or men. Changgu wasn’t picky.

Changgu admitted as much to himself: he was a man who wanted a lot of things. Which brought him to today, standing in front of a Chinese restaurant with his mouth watering and his stomach groaning for food.

What in the world was he thinking? He had come all the way from his dirt-poor hometown in Korea to this foreign, bizarre city in China, and the first thing his new superiors had told him was to take up this job as a rickshaw driver. His commanding officer had tried to sooth him: “Don’t you know how much information is spilled by men and women talking carelessly? Yes, you’re going to do manual labor, but yes, we’ll also pay you a stipend. And yes, you’re only going to take the routes to and from General Kokubun’s mansion. Yes, this means a lot of sitting around. No, you shouldn’t go hungry. And last, here’s a list of photographs. If you see these people, pay special attention.”

His commander had either lied or made a mistake. He was hungry, and that tall, cheeky bastard in the Japanese uniform had cheated him. True, under the official conversion rate, the soldier had paid enough yen for a ride. But under the black-market rate necessary to sustain life, the soldier had paid just a third of the actual price. And now Changgu was hungry.

His pay was generally poor, considering he was in fact just a rickshaw driver. On a few occasions, his clients would pay him generously, but those times were far and few between. Also, he learned which rickshaw customers liked to talk about things not meant for his ears, especially if they did not know that he knew Japanese. His best customer had been a doctor named Chen Shizhong, who was the best surgeon left in the city and the only one that General Kokubun had trusted to operate on his knee. Dr. Chen would mutter opinions and thoughts to himself, and Changgu dutifully relayed this information whenever the doctor discussed something politically sensitive. But the doctor was dead now, thanks to some mysterious assassin. Changgu’s new best customer was an overweight businessman named Cai Haoyang, who frequently went on courtesy calls to General Kokubun’s mansion accompanied by one of a dozen mistresses. The man paid spectacularly well, well compensating for the difficulty in hauling the man’s enormous girth to and from the general’s office.

Today’s cheeky brat would be one of the worst customers, as far as he was concerned. That brat’s friend, on the other hand, had been quite the sight to admire. He must have been Chinese, unlike the soldier, because he had a Chinese accent. Changgu hoped he would at least see the Chinese man again as a customer. But for that to happen, he needed to eat today. Otherwise, he’d be traveling around Huaqing in a hearse, not a rickshaw.

The alms houses were shut down at night now. He didn’t want to go back to the resistance base: he had already been there several times in the past week asking for financial assistance, and he didn’t want to seem a beggar. He had good reasons to go there again: his small supply of banknotes had been confiscated by the local police because it had been issued by the wrong government, the inland Chinese government, and his supply of food had been stolen from his rented room during the past night. But he had been to the resistance base too many times, and he knew most of the men there were as hungry as he was.

That left him no choice. He had to go to see Rat Face. He took his rickshaw, and began peddling again to the whorehouse his handler was using for cover.

It was called the Midnight Iris, and it was Huaqing’s most upscale house of prostitution. The building itself looked plain, but the layers of barbed wire and private security guards indicated plainly that it was a secured location meant for the city’s elite. The two glum-looking Chinese guards patrolling the perimeter waved Changgu through, having seen him enter the neighborhood several times. More than a few of the General’s guests preferred to go straight to the red-light district after their meetings with the Japanese.

While he still was feeling slightly weak after pedalling across two bridges, the mere sight of the Midnight Iris brought some relief to Changgu. He couldn’t go straight into the building: Rat Face would have killed him for ruining the whorehouses’s atmosphere. So he made his way to the side, speaking to a bored-looking Chinese servant boy and asking if he could speak to his handler. The boy didn’t understand all of Changgu’s Japanese-accented Chinese, but he understood enough.

Two minutes later, a heavyset man in a dishwasher’s smock emerged from the rear door and ushered Changgu into the back of the whorehouse. In a very clean and modern kitchen sat a thin man in a Western-style suit smoking a cigarette while listening to a radio with headphones. He set down the headphones when he saw Changgu and he stood up to greet Changgu.

“Ah, Changgu, this is early. Do you have anything to report?” The man spoke the local Huaqing dialect but his accent was Lower Yangtze Mandarin. Changgu called him Rat Face on account of the spy’s appearance, but never said the phrase aloud, addressing the man as “sir” instead. Changgu’s superior was clearly bored with listening to the radio, but did not seem particularly interested in speaking to the Korean man either.

“I can list the people I’ve driven and where they went, sir,” Changgu said, not wanting to go right into the topic of his hunger.

Rat Face’s mouth twitched. “Well? Go ahead then.”

Changgu closed his eyes and began to recite the premature report he had planned to tell Rat Face at another time.

“In the past five days, Liu Sibai paid two visits to the General, and he went to Hibiscus Moon and the Midnight Iris. Xiong Erchang paid two visits to the General, and he went to Wan Jizhong’s house. Tang Ying paid one visit and he then went to a seedy brothel on the north side of the city. Peng Weijiang paid one visit, and then he went to the central bank building. Cai Haoyang paid one visit to the General, and he went to a new mistress’s apartment,” Changgu listed all of the important people he could remember. The Japanese soldier and his Chinese companion fell far short of this spy’s radar.

Rat Face kept a keen ear and nodded when Changgu was done. “Go tell one of my assistants the address of Cai Haoyang’s newest mistress. I suspect the man isn’t so much sleeping as with those women as he is building up a network of safehouses. And let him know too that Xiong Erchang and Wan Jizhong are meeting. I don’t trust those two.”

Changgu saluted, and the other man raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Is there something else you require, Changgu?”

“Food, sir. I’m hungry, and I haven’t been paid enough,” Changgu said, trying to be forthright. Rat Face was a man who was easily persuaded in the face of aggression or force, Changgu had heard, but he didn’t budge when he sensed weakness.

“The resistance isn’t paying you?”

“They are, but the police confiscated my supply of banknotes. They were issued by the bandit Chinese government,” continued Changgu. “And they’re starving like me.”

Rat Face nodded, and scratched at his moustache. He stood up from the table and slipped a carton of cigarettes from his coat pocket into the pocket of Changgu’s trousers. “Some cigarettes, to stave off hunger.” He then gestured to the dishwasher, who had been watching them the entire time. “Get this man some xiaolongbao. He’s hungry.”

Changgu felt relief wash over his face. “Thank you so much, sir.”

The man put a hand to Changgu’s forearm. “Can’t have one of my moles going hungry,” he said with a small smile.”Eat in the kitchen.”

Rat Face returned to his radio, picking up the headphones once again, and Changgu left.

He paid Changgu no further attention, and that was for the better. Changgu guessed why: a master does not watch his dog eat. Changgu sighed and exited, already enticed by the smell of dumplings wafting in the air.

\---

Wooseok wanted to give a little wave to the cute serving girl, but she blushed as soon as she saw him and turned away. So he straightened his back to seem more attentive, standing outside the door while the General was talking inside one of the rooms.

This brothel was a nice enough place, Wooseok thought. Here there were a few well-dressed Japanese women with kimonos and painted faces, and quite a few more Chinese women with tight-fitting silk cheongsams. The air smelled remarkably fresh, and the room was surprisingly quiet. Either the clients were being discreet, or the General had reserved the entire building for his presence. Wooseok wondered if this brothel would be a good experience if he had some money to spend. Life in the Imperial Japanese Army was difficult, and the officers had attempted to establish some material comforts for the enlisted men. But Wooseok had tried to visit one of the comfort stations before, and he walked out almost as soon as he entered. The first person he had seen there had been a sickly-looking girl, a little younger than him, who was crying and speaking to herself in Korean. Wooseok immediately decided he wasn’t in the mood, and left to play cards with his fellow soldiers. Here, however, the women seemed pleasant and happy enough, at least to Wooseok’s eyes.

Inside, the General was sitting with Hiraide and two other men. Wooseok knew one of them was Chinese and the other was Japanese, but he didn’t know their names or ranks. The Japanese one was supposedly involved in running gambling parlors, opium dens, and brothels throughout the city, and the Chinese one was supposedly a member of local police force. Or was it the other way around? Was the Japanese the one in charge of the police and the Chinese in charge of the crime? Wooseok didn’t know, but thankfully he had a very keen sense of hearing that allowed him to pick up on bits and pieces of the conversation.

The men inside were speaking Japanese. There were a few instances when the General needed to translate something from Japanese, while the two newcomers sometimes conversed amongst themselves in the local Huaqing dialect. Wooseok was able to pick up almost all of the conversation.

“Something’s going on with the bandits, but I can’t quite tell,” said the Chinese man. Or was this the Japanese newcomer? All of the voices inside spoke without noticeable accents. “Our sources have been quiet. They must have closed ranks, and they’re suspicious of each other. We have our sources among them, telling us something has changed, but we have no idea what’s changed. It could be new leadership. They should be strapped for men. I don’t think they’re planning a big operation.”

“I blame the fucking Badger,” said Hiraide, foul-mouthed as usual. “The city’s quiet, we’ve done a good job killing the bandits and the gangsters, but as long as we know this motherfucker is alive and well, we can’t go to sleep well.”

“How do we know the Badger is still alive?” The General asked only a few questions, but he commanded the attention of the men in the room.

“We don’t, to be honest,” said the other newcomer. “Maybe the Badger doesn’t even exist. General Kokubun, the city’s underground is a mess. First, the Communists are still around. Second, the inland bandits might have as many as three underground networks in the city, none of which work together. And third, there are the gangsters, who take our yen on Monday and betray us on Tuesday.”

“You, Major Niimi,” said Hiraide again. “Get your fucking act together. You were supposed to disclose everything. Instead we have your fucking parallel network and you leave us in the dark. We need to set a trap, and you need to help us, instead of setting up your whorehouses and running opium in the streets.”

“Help you, Hiraide? Don’t be a hypocrite. If I let you do the job of running the comfort stations, you’d just be grabbing them off the street. And those opium dens have turned out to be great. Great source of intel, and they keep the locals complacent. I’ve been in this city for two years now, and I know how this place is run.”

The General gave a sigh, and the two Japanese men instantly became quiet. He took the time to pause again.

“Captain Hiraide, Major Niimi, both of you work hard and I trust you. Now that we have the bandits on the run, we need to finish the job once and for all. I want to set up a trap for the Badger, and I want you to catch him. Everything else, like the whores or the drugs, will take second priority. Do I make myself clear to the two of you? And Detective Hu, thank you for remaining the lone voice of calm.” The General then cleared his throat and exited, with Wooseok in tow.

The General was sighing to himself as he clambered into the back of the armored car. Wooseok took the passenger’s seat at the front of the car as the general’s valet took the driver’s seat. He could strike up a conversation: the general seemed to like that.

“Was everything okay, General?” Wooseok said, only half-waiting for the answer. He was busy scanning the streets and windows for a sniper or a bomb-thrower. He had a pistol gripped in one hand and his other held the edge of his seat.

“Hiraide and Niimi, those rascals,” said the General with a frown, tension visible on his face. “The city’s two best spies, not that it means much, and they can’t work together. They might as well be chasing a ghost. If only that Chinese detective, Hu Pinshan, had been born Japanese. He’s competent, humble, and loyal. With Hiraide and Niimi, I count myself lucky if I can get one out of three.”

The General gave a sigh and the car proceeded to move with a few noisy clanks. Wooseok remained attentive, looking around them on the streets. This road had been cleared for traffic, with barbed wire fences barring pedestrians from walking onto the street. The general’s motorcade moved at a relatively quick speed, twisting and turning its way on poorly-maintained asphalt. The engine lacked power: the army was still waiting for replacement equipment to be sent from Japan. But the cars made their way back to the General’s mansion.

Wooseok exited the car first, opening the door for the General, who slowly waddled up the steps to the house. Inside, Wooseok saw Yuto talking with his Chinese friend in the lobby. He wished he could have stopped to talk to Yuto too, but the Japanese man was paying him no attention. So Wooseok continued to walk besides the general until the man returned to his office. Wooseok was then dismissed, as the next shift of guards took over, allowing him to go downstairs to try to find Yuto.

He returned just in time to see Yuto’s face watching the Chinese clerk leave, and gave the Japanese man a nudge in the ribs.

“You need to stop it. You’re being way too obvious,” Wooseok said quietly.

“He said we could get dinner tonight. First drinks, then dinner. It hasn’t even been a week.” Yuto’s voice sounded giddy and Wooseok wanted to roll his eyes.

“You’re walking around radiating sunshine. People will notice.”

“Who cares?”

“What about him? You barely know him. Maybe he’s only doing this because you’re Japanese, you wear a uniform, and he’s scared of you.”

“He’s not scared of me.”

“Go on that date of yours without a pistol, and see if he acts differently.”

“That’s conspiratorial and paranoid.”

It was Wooseok’s turn to sigh. “You need to take an honest look at this country.”

“And I’m going to score in this country before you do. Jealous?”

Wooseok rolled his eyes. “Be careful out there.”

Yuto left a few moments later, and Wooseok turned to go upstairs. The sooner he could get out of this uniform and start playing cards, the better.


End file.
